Confessions of a (just) BE

                                       Confessions of  a (just) BE

I looked back at the dog.It wouldn't stop staring at me.Probably I was the first one to sit there-on that footpath.The next moment the dog's face became the interviewer's face and I had this impulse to kick it with all my might.Somehow restraining myself,I got up and looked for one last time at the 17th company that had rejected me.

"Which is your passion?"he had asked.

"Cricket."I had replied,without hesitation.He asked me to leave.I probably had just two passions in life-the other...anyways both were apparently not worth it at this time in my life.

"Study hard"was the first principle that was drilled into me in life.I adhered to it.That was the problem.I got good percentages in school,in my pre-university and landed up in an engineering factory.I was to be a proud product of such and such factory,with an aggregate of so much,having such and such skills.It was a bandwagon-and I had jumped into it before knowing that there were thousands of such factories churning out lakhs of engineers each year.

I got into the bus for a long ride back home.I looked out of the window.It was my favorite pastime when on a bus.I saw littered roads,poor people,unhygenic slums.I wanted to change all this..In a rush of emotion I clasped my file.Oops there was also a degree-a BE at that! I first had to do justice to that."Get a job-get a salary.Make a livelihood"-an other of those umpteen principles in life!

The bus passed in front of a mall.I longed for weekends that could be spent in malls.A saturday evening starting off with a lot of window shopping(give the impression that I am a potential customer),dinner at the food court and a late night movie seemed a perfect picture.And with a close friend next to you,you could easily ogle at the hundreds of girls who seem to throng malls as though they own them..and even pass a comment or two.I cursed my BE that didn't give a license in the form of  a job for all this!

Girls! Even they somehow evaded a decent BE graduate.All my friends who had a girlfriend languished at the bottom(or was it the other way round?).It was probably cool.I am sure they will end up with a job soon(I mean they always said a girl brings them luck).But I am not so sure I will end up with a girl-even if I get a job.The geniuses obviously attract the opposite sex without effort.So it was only surprising that my genius friends didn't book a ticket for their girls as they waved them goodbye in one hand and held Kgs of American Dreams in the other.

Their flight took off and I was left gaping at it...standing on the tallest vantage point-probably secretly hoping that if I could touch the bottom of an American flight..I would get a chance to do my master's there.I could imagine thousands of average BEs like me trying to do the same in different parts of our country.....

The bus stopped suddenly.I was jerked up from my reverie.Apparently there was a fault.All of us got down.

A mechanic rushed to the spot and corrected it.All the while I was looking at what he was doing,being a mechanical engineer myself.I couldn't make head or tail of what he was doing.In the end,he noticed me.I was clutching the degree to my chest(it had become a habit).He probably noticed it.He smiled a smile of sarcasm and left the place.

Then the thought hit me.He along with the world seemed to think that I was a (just) BE.

P.S.: The work is fictitious.But I am sure a genuine BE would connect with atleast one instance here!